The French bow maker Benoît Rolland has been named one of 23 recipients of this year's MacArthur Fellowship, a $500,000 no-strings-attached 'genius grant' from the MacArthur Foundation.

Rolland trained as a violinist before studying bow making in Mirecourt with Bernard Ouchard. After working as a bow maker in France for 25 years, he opened his current studio in Boston in 2001.

In its award citation, the MacArthur Foundation highlighted Rolland's experiments with new bow designs and alternatives to pernambuco, such as carbon fibre.

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